Major cellular telecommunication system types include those operating according to the Global Services for Mobile (GSM) Standard, the TIA/EIA/IS-95 Mobile Station-Base Station Compatibility Standard for Dual Mode Wideband Spread Spectrum Cellular Systems (IS-95), the TIA/EIA/IS-136 Mobile Station-Base Station Compatibility Standard (IS-136), the TIA/EIA/IS-707 Spread Spectrum cdma2000 Standard (IS-2000), TIA/EIA 533 Analog Standard (AMPS/TACS), and UMTS. Other major cellular systems include, but are not limited to, those operating in the personal communications system (PCS) band according to the IS-95 based ANSI-J-STD-008 1.8-2.0 GHz standard, or those operating according to the GSM-based PCS 1900 (19000 MHz frequency range) standard.
Currently, most of the major cellular system standards are implementing data services into its digital cellular specification. For most of the standards, the data service specifications have been finalized, or are being finalized.
One data service specification includes a radio link protocol (RLP) that can be utilized to provide an octet stream service over forward and reverse traffic channels. The octet stream service carries variable length data packets of the point-to-point protocol layer. The RLP divides the point-to-point protocol packets into traffic channel frames for transmission. The traffic channel frames form the physical layer transmission frames. There is no direct relationship between the point-to-point protocol packets and the traffic channel frames.
A large packet may span several traffic channel frames, or a single traffic channel frame can include all or part of several point-to-point packets. The RLP does not take the higher level traffic channel framing into account, but operates on a featureless octet stream, delivering the octets to the system multiplex sublayer for transmission in the order the octets are received from the point-to-point layer. The data may be transmitted on the traffic channel as primary traffic or, for example, along with speech, as secondary traffic. The RLP generates and supplies one frame to the multiple sublayer every 20 milliseconds (ms). The size of the RLP frame depends on the type and size of the transmission frame available for transmitting the RLP frame.
The foregoing is but one example of the data transmission protocol layer in a major cellular system standard, for use in transmission of data and data packets. Other standards also possess similar data transmission protocols used for transmission of data packets.
The majority of the data transmission protocols include a finite timer for insuring data transmission sessions do not dominate system resources. Such data transmission protocols include 3G-1X fundamental channel (FCH) capabilities. For example, once a data transmission session is established, the timer can be activated to measure an amount of time elapsed between consecutively received/transmitted data packets. That is, after a first packet is received/transmitted, the finite timer is initiated. If a subsequent packet is not received/transmitted before the timer expires, the telecommunication system will de-activate (make dormant) the data session in favor of freeing up resources for use by other data or speech sessions.
Although the use of a timer in telecommunications systems insure system resources are not unnecessarily dominated by one or more data sessions, the use of a uniform timer does not take into consideration data sessions that may have packets that are generated in a substantially periodic nature. Such data sessions may include, but are not limited to heart beat retrieval systems that access weather, traffic, stock and other information. Typically, these types of data sessions require a very small amount of data to be transmitted very frequently, which can lead to a data session being maintained for a long period of time unite a finite value expires.
In general, a 3G-1X high-speed wireless packet data network is based on a circuit-based physical layer channel. Physical channels can be temporarily assigned to users while they are sending or receiving packet data traffic. The channel can be taken away when the mobile is idle (i.e., not sending or receiving data for some period of time). The period of time is commonly referred to as inactivity time. In current deployments, the inactivity timer is a static timer that is typically provisioned per subscriber or at the system level.
Thus, the current handling of how the 3G-1X fundamental channel (FCH) is removed from the users after a period of inactivity is based on system-level or subscriber-provisioned static timers. The present inventors have concluded that a need exists for an adaptive packet inactivity timer that can also be set at a system level. The present inventors believe that it is desirable to have an adaptive packet inactivity timer that changes behavior based on a user's QoS (Quality of Service) level or other user attribute.